Blog
Where Words and Creation Meet
Stepping outside the front door, God invites us to notice His handiwork, remember our encounters with Him in His creation, and enjoy His presence in His studio. He offers Himself wherever we turn. What’s just outside your four walls? This evening, the moon greeted me as it said goodbye to the...
Behold Creation: Finding the Divine Artist in Nature
Artist Studio tours fascinate me. Wandering around the creative playground of makers intrigues and inspires. Visiting an artist’s workspace expands one's enjoyment and understanding of the beauty and wonder created in that place. To understand the art, it’s helpful to understand the artist, yet...
6 Steps of Discernment for Creative Endeavors
When the grandchildren come over, whether locally or from afar, I’m always curious about what they will choose to play with during the visit. What will they gravitate towards? What gears are turning in their brains that light up ideas that lead to the choice of the play they enter? What catches...
A Season of Decisions: Listening for God in Every Invitation
As summer winds down, autumn winds up. We step into the new season, and suddenly, many decisions crop up as invitations appear at every junction. They shout at me from across the computer screen. They whisper a friendly hello and a greeting in my physical mailbox. For you, the biddings may...
Writing with Vision: Visual Imagery Brings Your Words to Life
I walk up to the receptionist’s window. Bright cartoon stickers greet the eye everywhere I glance. I observe that I’m the only adult strabismus patient in the room. The journey to this waiting room, where there are more well-loved toys than dog-eared magazines, and more tears and laughter than...
Living in Mystery Amid Mundane
How to live in Mystery amid the mundane stirs my curiosity when I read the works of Catherine of Genoa. Her words strike chords so deep. Have you experienced shimmering beauty or known profound pain that leaves you completely speechless? That’s the way I feel in response to her ponderings....
Step into Your Calling as a Writer
What a Book Coach & Editor and Spiritual Director learned about Resistance and how that might help your calling as a Writer “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.” - St. Catherine of Siena The Gift of Words and the Call to Listen I delight in words. As...
Beholding Spiritual Freedom: A Mid-Year Examen
As we enjoy the month when the 4th of July greets us, freedom is a primary theme. Just look around. Flags flutter in the summer breeze, displays of patriotic red, white, and blue. Symbolic colors of freedom pop up everywhere. Signs proclaim: “Let freedom ring. Home of the free and the land of...
Grounding Grief in Memory and Prayer
How do we hold grief and loss amid a tragedy? The rage of a river, flash floods in Texas over the Fourth of July, unleashes a rage of questions, groans, and grief, doesn’t it? I remember a discussion once about reading the Bible and the culture & its news as a basic approach to our...
Behold Playfulness: Find Joy in Your Creative Writer’s Heart
Play involves risk. Creativity embraces gambles. When we engage in the work of writing, we sometimes forget the fun of it, the way it can be a bit of recreation. The Surprising Joy of Constraint After my husband's recent birthday supper celebration, our local grandchildren amused...
Play: Reclaiming Childlike Joy with God
What’s your quintessential image of summer? How does it involve play? Bare feet, jumping waves at the beach, wading in cool mountain streams, swimming from one end of the pool to the other end, and picnics in the backyard round out my summertime vision. It’s being outdoors. It’s being carefree....
The Editor’s Joy: Caring for Writers and Their Words
I spent three days in May attending an online Editors Conference. Workshops and keynote speakers fascinated and educated freelance editors. I pondered editorial possibilities for the writers I serve. As an editor, I care about words and the writers who write them. I pay attention to the teeny...
